Comments

Comment by apeiron

Seriously, what is the point of this skill? Why would you want threat as a Hunter unless you want to be one of those stupid tanking Hunters?

Comment by frmorrison

This isn't that good for a tanking hunter since it has an 8 yard min range. However, this would be good if a hunter was called to range a boss that used range attacks (however a Warlock would work better).

This is in place to pull aggro off your pet or to pull aggro off a caster (a hunter is more durable compared to a caster).

Comment by Gibbous

With the addition of Misdirection in TBC, this is excellent for helping the tank acquire a bit of starting aggro. So it's no longer only marginally useful!

Comment by clovis6780

This skill is also for kiting, right?

Comment by Blasterion

if I remember correctly distracting shot does not do damage neither other effects that assists in kiting but it does generate hate

Comment by Ilekrevs

And pull threat to get mobs in traps

Comment by ayvuirblue

Distracting Shot does not do damage (and thus, will not break crowd control effects) but will still generate threat. For one particular use for this, consider the scenario:

You have a Mob1 trapped, and you have a second trap ready at your feet for when the first one expires. However, you've just pulled aggro on Mob2. Naturally, you Feign Death. But now you've lost aggro on Mob1 as well, which will cause it to charge for the healer once its trap expires.

You can hit it with Distracting Shot to regain aggro, which will not break the current trap. Once the trap expires, it will run in your direction and pop the second trap you had waiting.

Comment by marineman001

In the Current Wrath Build this is now a Taunt effect. Hopefully it does not change because as of right now it would be immensely helpful in trapping and helping tanks out. MD + This spell. (Provided that the tank gets the threat and not you)

Comment by Veshanna

Currently in 3.0.2 on live, this attack taunts... completely ignoring Misdirection. It generates no threat, just taunts.

Comment by Kurasu

Be *very* careful while doing this, however. Auto-shot will fire at the same time you fire your weapon, making it a possibility to break the trap accidentally. Especially with a lot of macros breaking ATM.

Comment by barbeque

Distracting Shot no longer works with Misdirect as of patch 3.0.2

If you cast Distracting Shot even with the MD buff on tank, you taunt the mob off the tank. Found this out the hard way.

Comment by rauxon

Same here.

Thankfully my pet's special abilities were all "up", so a quick kill command and intimidation managed to undo the "damage".

It's an interesting shift in use of Distracting shot. Before it could be used (with misdirect) to help the tank get an almost unattainable lead in threat - and now it seems that it's almost exclusively intended for attracting things into your traps. Don't get me wrong - that's likely to be quite useful too - but considering how many of the higher end mobs are immune to taunts, its usefulness has probably taken a big dive here. As far as I can see, it's now just an easier way of pulling one trash out of a big pull into your trap - so down to a single use :)

Comment by Interest

Can hunter tank? With this they can! (for tauntable mobs only).

Comment by Nebaru

I agree with this. I did a bit of messing around and found a decent way to pull and trap, i've found, is to create this macro:

Plus, you'd need to disable the option 'Auto Attack/Auto Shot' in the 'Combat' tab of the Interface, otherwise it would keep firing on auto. But this'd mean that you'd either have to start off ranged attacks with arcane shot for example, or put auto shot back onto the action bar and use that.

If there is another way around this though, please reply.

Comment by x0reaper0x

meh... not necessarily it doesnt work if youre the target soo itd really only be usefull as an oh #$%^ button to save a healer or something or maybe buy healers some time to get the tank up. Can we confirm that Distracting Shot doesnt work on raid bosses? For fun i decided to srew with a tank in ZA and pulled Bear boss off him ~_^

also used this to shoot myself ahead of the pack when range tanking Illidan...Id assume id get immunes if it doesnt work on raid bosses right? But i got none...

Comment by hypehuman

Just wanted to correct your wording... Distracting Shot does not technically "taunt" the target, it just forces it to attack you for a period of time (like Mocking Blow). The difference is that a taunt will increase your threat so that it is higher than the highest player on the mob's threat list, whereas this spell just forces the target to attack you, regardless of anyone's threat levels.

EDIT: This spell also does apply a small amount of threat. On my 64 hunter, this amount was 118 (unlike the 110 that wowhead lists). Has anyone experimented to see if that little chunk of threat is transferred to your misdirection target? (even though the spell still forces the target to attack you)

Comment by Sideways29

Comment by badfast

Ya, I play hunter and mage sometimes i find myself trying to taunt off healers but end up blinking into the group.

Comment by matt6961

you're replying to a post made back when distracting shot was a set amount of threat to the target and not what it is now

Comment by Drolefille

Also useful for the Gluth fight if you want to run 1 tank on Gluth and one on the zombies. Instead of two tanks taunting Gluth back and forth, the hunter taunts him from max range. This is generally long enough for the debuff to clear although if it does not the hunter can simply taunt again.

Disengaging is also useful here with Deterrence as a back-up.

Comment by elitearthas

Welll it might hurt your melee dps quite abit with Gluth running around but yea I like the idea =D Used to 4 man heroics at 70 with this 'ping pong' aggro method (hunter + frost mage is sweet combo haha)

Comment by elitearthas

Glad to know i'm not alone haha then again i rarely used distracting shot so the reverse happens more often for me (distracting shot instead of 'blinking' with my hunter) haha

Comment by Nanex

/cast Distracting Shot/stopcasting

should sort that problem out.

Comment by Onarr

I've made a little macro which i used during leveling to pull a mob from my pet and freeze him with trap

/castsequence reset=combat freezing trap, distracting shot

i think it is usable even in instances

Comment by omegadon

This appears to be a crucial element in taking down yogg saron +0 as detailed by the guild 'Stars' here . Grats on the (legitimate) world first! Glad hunters could play a pivotal role.

Comment by CaptainFlameGuy

Strafing a bit would also work, if you don't feel like using/making macro's.

Comment by Anthonyacat

You are both correct and incorrect.

When the post you replied to was made, Distracting Shot used to generate around 5,000 agro points (a fair bit back in TBC) which was very useful in Misdirects.

As at patch 3.0, or perhaps 2.4, it was changed to an ability which basically taunts the target, rather than creating threat, and it can no longer be misdirected.

Comment by Cheebeechoobza

Would imagine it'd be worse to try blinking out of something and end up hitting the boss with distracting shot.

Comment by Elvage

Why does it say immune to players?

Level 14 hunter.

Comment by Elvage

Why does it do Immune when I use it on other players and whenever it does work it doesn't move them (immobilize) around like i've seen before?

Level 14 hunter.

Comment by fredward11

To save the priest!

Comment by bdeboare

Just had a Hunter constantly using this in SM, 't was so fun... Constantly taunting it off again

Comment by anodynex

useful on heroic bosses in a melee heavy group before you link damage meter

Comment by Aleister

When I was in Wailing Caverns (as tank) this hunter would keep on using this ability, so I told him to stop but then he said I had to l2keep agro and called me a noob. Not so much fun.

Comment by Cialbi

OK...the only cure for idiots using a pulling shot that does no damage and is able to pull pretty much anything off a level 1 player is simple yet simply harsh.First, tell them to stop, and do it kindly. If they say no, explain why to them patiently - someone has to teach them. If they then kick sand in your face, then apparently they really want to tank instead of you. So, don't try to stop them; just keep decent aggro on the mob until the hunter dies so that you can pull it off your healer or caster easily. Use good judgment - you will know when you can't afford to just let someone die. Once all is said and done, lecture the hunter. Let the hunter know that either he tanks the instance instead of you, or he lets you tank and stops casting Distracting Shot. Just make it clear that the healer can't keep a hunter tank alive (unless they actually know how to tank as a hunter, which will not be the case).

I use my hunter as my main, so don't QQ me. And be patient when trying to explain; the person may just not know how to play a hunter. I know that I've learned many things from polite, helpful people (No, I never did this - I can read tooltips). Teams require teamwork - a novel concept to some, unfortunately.

Comment by Greenlander

Why go to the corpse for looting, when you can get the mob go to you, before it dies? :P

Comment by Lindentree

This kind of effect is called a "fixate."

Comment by Ruthenia

LOL, this actually is a consideration when I'm farming. I want them to die at my feet :P

Comment by hafu78

USELESS.

Comment by Shageki

Using this to peel a boss off the tank if he's dangerously low on health, or if the boss has some kind of temporary damage buff can easily mean the difference between a wipe and kill.

Doing it in the latter case will also ease the strain on the healer's mana pool.

Comment by Tyriar

I use this to force melee mobs to dance between myself and the tank. Something that is once again useful to do now that heroics are difficult again.

It is also useful to pull off squishier classes, used in conjunction with kiting and deterrence where necessary.

Comment by Asmor

Also good for when you need to freeze something after a pull's been initiated. Lay down trap, back up a bit, and distracting shot. Just make sure it's not DOTted up and the other players know to leave it alone!

Comment by Deatharrhea

it is a very useful ability.

Like in Grim Batol in the General Umbriss fight. you can distract shot the purple trog, so that he runs over your trap hence CCing him.

If your healer is taking damage, and the tank is not near by, you can distracting shot the mob and bring him to the tank. I remember doing this a lot especially in Vanilla wow.

If you are asked to kite a mob, it is useful to pulling aggro so you may do so. To say that it is a useless ability is an utter falsehood.

Comment by Vinland

One very handy use for it is during the Augh fight in Lost City of the Tol'vir, when he does his Whirlwind ability. Using it then will still cause him to head toward you and away from the rest of the group, which is ideal when you have a melee-heavy group.

Comment by zombieloffe

Immensely useful ability.

Many times have I used it (mostly in heroic dungeons) when the main tank dies. Along with another taunting DPS class (like a paladin using Hand of Reckoning) you can force the boss to simply run back and forth, never attacking anyone, allowing the rest of the group time to finish him off.

Comment by Kyhle

This ability seems to activate "Wild Quiver", which is really annoying when you gonna try and tame a low lvl mob that you wanna ensure stay focused on you.

Comment by Duradan

USSO TAUNTAUSSO TAUNTAUSSO TAUNTA!

That was so hilarious the first time you watched it.

For those who dont know, watch the paragon world first LK 25 part 3 of 3 (5:00 in the video)

Comment by Swinny

Anyone else notice when looking at the spell details that it says "Mechanic: Healing"? What part of taunting initiates a healing mechanic? lol

Comment by MadMood

I got a question that might sound noobish..but...if I Misdirect the tank and use Distracting Shot will this means that the threat boost is transfered to the tank?Can anyone confirm this?

The script part randomly chooses one of those lines whenever it's shot. It also tacks on the name of the target. (e.g. if you shot it at Hogger, it might say "Over here Hogger"). It does the same thing with the emote. My reasoning for adding those lines was to make it overly obvious that I want the mob to come at me (for any of the above reasons others have posted). I chose the /s command as I assume most people don't have that speach bubble disabled.

That said, more often than not, the tank will just grab it back anyway (often when the mob was a mere 2 steps away from hitting a trap). This is especially true with death grips lol. Oh well, I tried.

A little more on that macro, you can change the random statements if you'd like. All you do is change the lines inside the quotes (but keep the quotes). You can also make it not say the target's name if you want. Just remove the %t. You could even incorporate your focus' name (%f) as well.

Comment by Hrenyo

this is currently the best taunt ingame: 6sec duration on an 8sec CD, that's twice the duration of any normal tank taunt! i feel betrayed...

Comment by QQbangbang

does it work on players?

Comment by SoulSwordx

After popping detterence would it still be possible to keep threat? If so, would it allow a hunter to take some hard hitting hits for the tank? I would love to see a hunter take Impale

Comment by rogermw

What is this spell's icon supposed to be?

It looks vaguely like the Horsehead Nebula.

Comment by Magevossie

Could this actually be used to steal someone's tame? - you see someone taming,- distracting shot the mob,- start your own tame since you have the aggro now.

I know this is really nasty thing to do (if it works) but I was just wondering about it